Adjustments
by Vera Kate
Summary: Chloe realizes that their relationship has to change if it is going to survive.


**A/N:** Here is a one-shot that I've been playing with! A note for fans of Promises Made - Oaths Sworn should be up on Friday, so keep an eye out!

Also - please review, the upload date also happens to be my birthday!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Darkest Powers_ or _Darkness Rising_ by Kelley Armstrong.

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><p>This part was always easy. The kissing, I mean. It certainly helps that you've been kissing the same person for over a year and there isn't the general awkwardness of not knowing how they kiss. Not that I have much experience in that department … I mean, there was Simon, but that was … well, I wasn't as an enthusiastic partner like I am now.<p>

That's a whole other story.

Back to the kissing – I probably shouldn't be doing this. Tori pointed out last week that I was "rewarding" Derek after our fights by having an extended make out session afterwards. I had argued that no, it wasn't a reward, it was an assurance that things were okay, that we weren't in trouble.

It had been nagging at me though. Tori had much more experience in the relationship department than Derek and I combined. Simon did too, although he rarely suggested things to me. I don't know if he did to Derek or not. I know that he used too.

Before Badger Lake, we hadn't argued much. Well, okay, we hadn't argued about our _relationship. _Granted, there wasn't the time or the luxury to really argue about it, being on the run from a Cabal and a research group. We were in an insular bubble. It had been just Simon, Kit, Tori, Lauren, Derek and me. There wasn't much to argue about since it was the same people we saw over and over, day in and day out. Simon and I had already tried something but that had fizzled spectacularly. When looking at it objectively, it didn't make sense. Simon was good looking, funny, charming, and he could put anyone at ease. Now, compare that to Derek, who at the time had a pretty bad case of acne, a foul attitude, and preferred to communicate in grunts and cause people to give him a wide berth.

Objectively, Simon _should_ have been the guy. He certainly treated me better in the beginning. Derek had barely acknowledged my existence until he tried to manipulate me to further his own cause.

Not exactly the best way to start out.

Then throw in some supernatural powers to really complicate things and a case of scientific experiments gone wrong and you have a cheesy set up. Too bad it wasn't just some movie and that it was my real life.

It's been hard, harder than it should be, I think. I'm not one hundred percent sure. Prior to Derek, I had my 'date' with Simon and that was it.

Badger Lake certainly changed things. Obviously, we were with a Cabal, so there wasn't the issue of constantly looking over our shoulders. Derek had taken a while to adjust to that. The first six months, I'm not sure if he slept through a single night without at least checking all of our houses and locks once a night.

No, the biggest change for everyone was that suddenly we were surrounded by _people_.

As a default, Derek didn't like people. At Lyle House, they had listed him having anti-social disorder. They had us all classified as having some mental ailment in an attempt to keep us from knowing about our powers. I, for instance, was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I really was suffering from my necromancer powers awakening. I'm fairly sure that the rest of us and our diagnoses were a smoke screen. With Derek though … well, he didn't fill in the criteria nicely but he wasn't about to start to willingly make new friends.

We quickly learned that he was rather … possessive. Anytime that I wasn't in class or training, he wanted to be near me, it didn't matter if we interacted or not. There were more than a few times where we hardly exchanged a word but he still preferred it that way.

I had brushed it off; saying that since he considered me as part of his 'pack' that it was natural that he wanted me nearby. Well, until Tori pointed out that he didn't seem to give a damn about her and Simon's locations as long as they were on the topside of the earth. That really opened my eyes to the bigger picture and I certainly didn't like it.

The arguments started then, but they were relatively mild. I pointed out that error in his logic but he said that he didn't have to worry about them as much as he did me. They had offensive – and in the case of Tori, also defensive – powers while … well, Liz might be around to throw a plate at somebody.

I didn't appreciate the sentiment. It was a short argument, nothing too vicious or voice rising, but it opened the floodgates.

The next few were also about the same level, sometimes they were over him being upset that I was going back to the house I shared with my Dad earlier than normal; other times it was because I had promised I would work on extra training assignments and had to stay behind either at school or the training grounds. Derek really didn't see the point in me doing that by myself. He pointed out that I regularly watched him shift between forms, so the concept of me practicing on things that he _couldn't_ see shouldn't be such a big deal.

It was a big deal. It was a big deal to me. I didn't want to try to explain to him about how I needed to do this for myself. I needed to know that if something happened, I could take care of myself. Every time that we were on the run, he had been around, yelling and barking instructions at me. We weren't on the run anymore and hopefully we wouldn't be on the road anytime soon. It couldn't hurt to be prepared. We couldn't stay here forever in our little bubble and the Cabal would come one day seeking payment. Sean said that if we wanted too, we could simply walk away but that just seems too good to be true.

I needed to get my own confidence. Derek could Change by himself, but he simply preferred me being around. See how he likes to occupy the majority of my waking time.

But being a necromancer is different than changing into a wolf. It just … well, I don't know how best to describe it. Mystical? Spiritual? Something along those lines. I'm dealing with … well, souls I suppose is the best term for it, souls of people who died. Sometimes I'm helping them achieve their own peace, other times I'm bringing someone through the veil to talk to them. Sometimes I just want to hang out with Liz without a broody boyfriend who is calculating how long I have until I lose my mind.

That was an epic argument, easily the nastiest to date.

The only way to further my control is to practice, but by using my powers more, I'm also eating away at my sanity, chip by chip.

That's the reason there aren't any old necromancers. Allegedly there is one somewhere else in Canada but when the description starts off with 'Have you seen _Lord of the Rings_? Do you remember Gollum?' that isn't exactly encouraging.

I wasn't sure how or if we would ever top that one. I had hoped that we wouldn't.

And I was right … until today.

* * *

><p>I leaned back in my chair. We didn't have desks in our school, we had tables. Why? The official reason was that they wanted us to build on teamwork and trust each other. I think they simply didn't want to have plenty of desks and no students in a few years. They could reuse the tables. Desks? Not so much.<p>

I had been asked to stay back. I had some subjects that I was good at, most that I was pretty average, and of course there was one that always seemed to taunt me with its ever taunting concepts.

This year it was chemistry.

And guess who somehow was a genius that understood the ions and the neutrons and whatever else was in there? I wouldn't have guessed it in a million years.

It was Ash, Maya's twin brother.

Ash had his own quirks – I think he and Derek were tied with their determination to hate Badger Lake. Derek doesn't quite hate it like he did, but he hasn't come around to it either. Ash has been quieter about his feelings, which is saying something. Generally if he wants us to know something, he'll tell Maya and she'll tell us without thinking about making _him _spread his own news.

Today was going to be brief, thankfully. I needed to let Ash know what was giving me trouble and then we would start from there tomorrow. Problem was … we needed to go back to chapter three. In class, we were on chapter nine.

Ouch.

He grumbled and muttered something but I didn't catch it. He seemed to have warmed up to us Genesis kids more so than Phoenix. It might be a cultural thing. Despite May and Ash being twins, they were separated shortly after birth. Maya went on to live her life in Canada. Ash, on the other hand, ended up being raised in the states, like Genesis, but his life was significantly harder. His mom had abandoned him with people he didn't know and he bounced around in the foster system for a few years before striking it out on his own on the streets.

Going by first impressions alone, Ash was even more antisocial than Derek. I honestly didn't think that was possible, but it was.

I left feeling worse than I expected. If it had been Daniel or Corey, it would have been fine, honest. But Ash?

Much like cats and dogs, skinwalkers and werewolves do _not_ get along or at least among the males. I can't say that the female werewolf has come here to test the theory. Or, it could simply be Derek and Ash butting heads since they're more than likely to do that with every other person on the planet. It is better when they're in their human forms. After a few dicey encounters in the forest, Derek has his Changing days and the skinwalkers have theirs.

"You're late," a growl came from the wall next to the door.

I sighed, seeing Derek leaning up against it. "I had to talk about school stuff. Aren't you always harping on me about how that's important and that I need to start taking it more seriously?"

A grunt in response.

"I'm going to be out later now on most days," I said, walking along the worn path.

"Why is that?"

"I'm having trouble in one of my classes, so I'm having some tutoring sessions."

"You could have always asked me for help."

I sighed again. There were some areas I would be glad to have Derek help me with. Opening the olive jar? Reaching a never used pan up on the top shelf? Sure. But school stuff was different. I knew I shouldn't try to compare myself to others, but I did, and I didn't like the way that it made me feel.

"I know," I replied. "I just … well, I think the tutoring is as much for me as for him."

"Him?" Derek stopped, a scowl spread across his face.

"Yes, _him_," I rolled my eyes, continuing to walk home. Derek caught up with me after a minute.

"Who is it? Daniel?"

I gave a smirk. I hadn't thought this completely through. I knew on one level that this would bother him, but perhaps I had underestimated a tad. "Nope," I cheerfully replied, "its Ash."

Derek growled, I swore he did. He gnashed his teeth, as if chewing on words would make them less volatile.

"I don't like it," he said.

"It doesn't really matter to you, does it? It's _my_ tutoring, so really, it shouldn't affect you at all."

"It does. You'll be spending time with him."

I gave him a cool look. "You mean I'll be spending more time with him and less time with you as consequence? Yes. Unless you want me to get even further behind, and possibly have to stay here longer while you're off at college, you'll back off. It's my education Derek. Not yours."

Our fights lately had been skirting the issue of him demanding all my free time, his ever increasing possessiveness. It hadn't always been this way. Prior to Badger Lake, of course, things were different. He seemed to keep himself in check more then. That was before we were around other teenage boys.

I left. I didn't bother finishing the argument. It was something that we could go round and round about. Slamming my door did give me some satisfaction.

* * *

><p>Derek had taken upon the duty to wait for me while I was being tutored. Under normal circumstances, this would be considered sweet, a boyfriend hanging around school while his girlfriend finishes up. Not complaining about the wait, but holding a silent watch until she emerged.<p>

Derek wasn't sweet. Well, not in that sense. A better way of saying was that his intentions weren't sweet.

He was _checking up_ on me. He would argue that he was checking on Ash but it was bullshit. Ash didn't have any sort of obligation to take his feelings into consideration. I, on the other hand, did and I didn't exactly appreciate the message he was sending me.

"I don't trust him," I could already hear Derek arguing. It didn't matter if Derek trusted Ash or not. What he really meant was that he didn't trust _me_ and that stung.

If I wanted too, I could be petty and strike back, really give him cause to worry. That is what Tori would do. I know that since she's suggested that he get a "taste of his own medicine" a time or two. She insists that this is rapidly approaching unhealthy levels. I had brushed her off until Maya started agreeing with her last week.

Maya's also relatively experienced dating wise – both casually and serious. She and Daniel had been dating only a few months less than Derek and I but before that, she had her string of casual boyfriends. She's easily the most level headed person our age here. She and I have also become decently close over the past few months.

It was jarring to think about but after looking at a few handouts Maya had given me about unhealthy relationships and realizing that I was recognizing more signs than not, it looked as though there _was_ something wrong here.

The 'treatment' had differed – Tori, like I said, had suggested that I really give Derek something _to_ obsess over or just flat out tell him I was tired out his bullshit. She even offered to tell him off herself, if I wanted, but noted that it wouldn't carry much weight coming from her. Maya had suggested that I also talk to him, but in a very calm manner. She even threw out the idea of couples counselling.

Couples counselling for a pair of teenagers? That seemed pretty intense.

I had been planning on talking to him like she suggested but after seeing what he was doing, Tori won out.

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><p>I had made it maybe ten feet off the school property before he was at my heels. I did my best to ignore the building fury in my chest.<p>

I've learned from my necromancer training is that sometimes emotional outbursts can cause a bit of a 'flare up' with the glow that I have around me. Not that I'm _literally_ glowing – that would be a bit off putting – but ghosts could more easily 'see' that I'm a necromancer instead of just a regular person.

I did my best to remain calm. I really did. I just wasn't being very successful at the moment because of my boyfriend and his compulsive need to be where I'm at at all times and preferably not with any other guys our age.

Liz appeared and then quickly disappeared, seeing that I wasn't intentionally summoning her and that she didn't want to be in the line of fire, so to speak. Hopefully she could curb any other spirits that decided that they wanted to become acquainted with me. I doubted that Liz actually went back over; it was probably more along the lines of going where she was out of sight but within hearing range.

I kept walking, my pacing turning from walking to borderline stomping. Derek was close behind.

"Chloe," he finally broke the silence when I was doing my best to keep my composure.

"What," I snapped, keeping myself going. I knew that if I stopped and turned around, there wouldn't be any turning back. Everything would be out in the open.

"Chloe," he said again, and I felt his arm go around my arm. I quickly jerked it away. He stopped, or so I assumed. I didn't hear him walking behind me and he didn't try grabbing at me again.

I made it back to my house without any further incident.

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><p>I had been staring at my phone. I wanted to talk to someone. I needed too. If I told Tori or Maya, they'd go ballistic. Tori would ensure that he wouldn't be grabbing at anyone ever again while Maya would tell one of the Cabal workers.<p>

The solution materialized in front of me. Liz appeared through my bedroom door and gave me a small wave before jumping on to my bed.

"So – you want to talk some?"

I sat down beside her and buried my head in my hands.

I explained to her what had happened – not that she really needed the play by play action since she was a silent witness to it all – and I felt somewhat better getting it off of my chest.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. Tori would say that this is going into a bad place and break it off. I don't _want_ that to happen but at the same time, I want to be able to spend time with people without him obsessing over it."

Liz nodded. "Well, what if you were able to actually get that message through to him?"

"Then all of this would be solved, case closed," I grinned.

"Well … I _do_ have an idea or two," Liz grinned back.

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><p>My brain positively hurt. We were making rapid progress in catching up with the rest of the class. It turned out I had only really missed out on one main concept that had been throwing the rest of it off. At this rate, I wasn't sure if I would really need to continue tutoring. That was the idea that kept me going despite all of the drama with Derek.<p>

It was akin to Cold War drama – a lot of silent glares, heavy silences, and just wanting to avoid him all together. It wasn't the most mature route to take but it was better than having a yelling match every time.

If it just had simply been waiting by the door each day, well, I could get used to it, or at least accept it. I drew the line at him wanting to 'sit in'.

That was going too far.

I had been keeping Liz's ideas in the back of my head. They weren't the most terribly mature and I'm sure there would be long term ramifications, but simply visualizing acting them out helped me when I just couldn't _deal_ with it.

The tutoring sessions had been going longer and longer each day … and I had stayed back even longer to keep working on my homework. It certainly came a lot easier when I had already been thinking about all of the concepts instead of finishing it at home.

It bugged Derek. I'm sure that it did. I'm also fairly sure that he knew I had some agenda since he could see Ash leave the building.

It was passive aggressive of me, sure, but honestly … I just needed some time too.

Derek rarely engaged me in any conversation on the walk home. Generally once I put my bag inside and came back out, then he would talk about whatever he had on his mind – everything except the giant elephant in the room.

Today was different, I noticed. He seemed more agitated.

"Chloe … can we talk?"

I turned to him. This was clearly a sign that something was up. Perhaps all of the times I stayed late finally drove the point home.

"Sure," I replied.

"I …," he sighed and looked around. Derek was never the most comfortable dealing with such intangibles such as feelings. "Can we stop somewhere on the way to talk somewhere?"

"I guess."

There was a makeshift park not too far from the school. I guess they put it there in case Badger Lake stayed around for a few years. It helped make the town look normal, I guess. It gave some of the younger staff members a place for their lunch dates or somewhere to take young children out to play.

The bench was cold and hard. It turned dark early these days, the first effects of fall, along with the brisk breeze.

I'm not sure how long we sat there, staring out into the distance. It was cold and I didn't want to be here. Derek was going to force the conversation I've been doing my best to avoid. I knew that he wasn't going to change by simply talking to him – again, intangible ideas – but some part of me hoped that by seeing actions something would click.

Sure, it was passive aggressive, but at some point you just get tired of having the same arguments over and over again.

"I'm sorry," he rasped out. I turned to him, surprise plainly written on my face. He repeated himself.

I nodded and gave him a small smile.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"I don't know exactly," he admitted. "I was hoping that we could come to sort of compromise."

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><p>Was it perfect after that? Hardly. However, it was a start and things started getting better. It was less stalker boyfriend and more concerned boyfriend.<p>

Did I expect there to be bad days? Yes. This was going to be an ongoing process. Derek had to dial back his instincts, which isn't as easy as it sounds. His obsessiveness wasn't strictly from a controlling _me_ perspective, but it also factored in controlling the environment that I was in and the corresponding level of danger. I had to check in with him more often than what would be considered normal. I generally also gave him the option of joining me. At first he always took the option, but slowly he started to turn them down, opting to spend time with Simon or studying.

I could live with where we were at and where we were going.


End file.
